Fletcher in the News

Prof. Amar Bhide Weighs in on Fate of J.P. Morgan's Jamie Dimon

Date: June 28, 2012

Should J.P. Morgan's Jamie Dimon Be Fired?

Amid reports from the New York Times that J.P. Morgan's London unit trade losses could climb as high as $9 billion, some are wondering whether it's time to seriously reconsider CEO Jamie Dimon's fate at the bank.

"Dimon has either failed to supervise, failed to tell the truth, or both. Pleading ignorance doesn't help," [Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at] Tufts University professor Amar Bhide told me. Bhide believes the board should fire Dimon, saying Dimon's tenure can be characterized by "repeated incidents that exemplify an absence of the duty of care, which impacts the public good."
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Tufts' Bhide has his own laundry list of failures on Dimon's watch, from charges of bribery of Alabama commissioners, non-disclosure to clients, mishandling of customer funds, and robo-signing among other flawed foreclosure processes. What Dimon has done is "much more egregious than selling risky derivatives to Procter & Gamble," for which "the SEC made Bankers Trust's life miserable and the board got rid of [CEO Charlie] Sanford," he argues. The Bankers Trust case represented potential harm to private interests but what has occurred under Dimon's supervision represents "a threat to the public interest, especially considering that J.P. Morgan is a large, systemically important bank," Bhide says.
Bhide also points out that Solomon CEO John Gutfreund was "fired just for delays in reporting bad behavior" to the Fed -- and that "Skilling is behind bars" for "puffery" and a failure to be forthcoming.